Chronology and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in the sub-tidal zone: a case study from Hinkley Point

Developments in the recovery of offshore Holocene peat and sediment sequences now permit the production of multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental datasets and landscape reconstructions from submerged sample sites. This paper uses evidence from three cores, recovered from submarine peat deposits at Hinkley Point, Bristol Channel, UK, to explore the issues and challenges associated with producing radiocarbon chronologies from deeply submerged peat sequences within a marine environment. We emphasise the importance of analysis of multiple sequences to construct robust chronologies for local hydrological change and landscape reconstruction (Edwards, 2006). The need for local evidence is critical if we are to move beyond generalised and potentially misleading models of human-environment interaction (Scaife, 2011), because as this case study demonstrates, complex processes and landscape variability might have been features of even highly-localised palaeoenvironments.